Inside Frank
by Zilo
Summary: CROSSOVER: Donnie Darko-American Beauty. Everything has been lost. Donnie and Ricky converse over a game of chess in an insane asylum. Multiple Pairings including mild Slash.
1. Birthday

"It's my birthday today." Donnie continues glaring at the chess pieces, as if he could reconfigure them with his mind alone. He can feel Ricky's steady gaze on him, penetrating into his skin almost. "Guess how old I am?" He asks; his voice somewhat cracking at the end. The thought that he, Donnie Darko has had another birthday locked away in this white-walled institution breaks his heart. _It should have worked. He should have been able to save her. Gretchen. He's not supposed to be here._

"Nineteen?" Ricky asks. His quiet voice calmly shattering Donnie's never ending thought trails.

Donnie looks up suddenly, his glare momentarily erased by cautious suspicion. He tilts his head to the side and is again surprised at how the other boy holds his penetrating gaze. They've only known each other for a couple months now. All their conversations are had during or in between games of chess and checkers. He likes Ricky alright but he doesn't trust him, yet. "How'd you know that?" He asks carefully.

"Guessed." Ricky answers simply.

It's a staring contest and neither is used to losing.

Donnie finally blinks and a slow smile spreads its way across his lips. It transforms him entirely and Ricky finds himself smiling back, though he's sure that wasn't Donnie's intent.

Ricky has been watching this particular boy for a while. That's all there is too do in here anyway. Watch the people around you, read between the lines to see the real story behind what's presented. It's not like they won't tell you, give you an earful packed with more sorrow then you thought existed in the world, but that's not safe. Ricky likes a bit of distance between himself and those he watches. It can hurt to get too close. He misses his video camera and sometimes worries that he won't be able to remember everything.

After Lester Burnham's trial Ricky stopped talking. They'd used the video Jane and him had recorded in court as proof that he'd murdered Mr. Burnham. All his videos had been confiscated. They'd taken everything and then told him how lucky he was he was for being sent to the institution instead of jail. _I'm so lucky. You're so lucky Ricky._ All night long when he couldn't sleep because of screaming he didn't feel very lucky. _I need better drugs. These ones aren't working. I can still feel too much._ He'd been transferred after eight months to a 'more qualified facility.' The screaming stopped at night and he'd started talking again.

"How old are you?" Donnie finally breaks the silence after a long intense ten minutes spent wrapped up in the game. He's won again and the tension in his shoulders seems to temporarily sag as he resets the board.

"Guess." Ricky answers, though he doesn't really expect Donnie to try.

"Nineteen?"

Ricky smiles like they're sharing a secret and shakes his head. "No. Twenty-two."

Donnie looks him over critically as if the three extra years could be found in the lines around his eyes and mouth.

"Happy Birthday." Ricky tells him with an amused glint to his eyes though it doesn't touch his lips.

Donnie nods. "Happy Birthday." He whispers to himself. His mother is supposed to come today and he's anxiously dreading the visit. It's been two and a half years since they locked him up and left him here. Frank is still dead. Gretchen is still dead and he's still crazy and rotting away in here.

"What?" Ricky's eyes are burning and Donnie just stares at him blankly. "Frank who?"

Donnie swallows hard and changes his mind in a second. He wants to trust someone and this boy has the same sort of eyes he used to see in the mirror. "I killed him but sometimes he comes to me in my dreams. He tells me things."

Ricky feels his skin chill at the other's words but it seems to fit now. The reason why he was drawn to this boy seems to be unfolding slowly. "I have dreams too. Frank is my father's name."


	2. Rose Petals

"What did you do at military school?" Donnie asked, looking up halfway from his drawing.

They were sitting under an elm tree having supervised time outside in the main quad. One of the doctors had recommended Donnie 'express his feelings visually' so now he took his sketchbook with him everywhere.

Ricky tripped off the tree root he was trying to balance on and landed in the dirt not far from where Donnie sat. "A lot of marching and drills." He examined his scrapped elbow critically. "Discipline and humiliation, the best tools for beating down a rotten spirit."

Donnie nodded and then suppressed a smile as he said; "You're still rotten."

"Yeah." Ricky snorted a laugh and sat down near him. "Can I see?" He craned his neck to try and get a better look at the drawing.

Donnie folded the pages against his chest protectively. "It's not done yet."

Ricky shrugged his shoulders and did the staring thing.

Donnie always felt like the other boy was cracking open his brain and peering inside all his thoughts whenever his eyes got that glassy look. It was both terrifying and thrilling to be under such close examination. Without a word he held out the drawing so Ricky could see it.

It wasn't Frank like Ricky had been expecting. Donnie was always extra protective of his Frank drawings.

It was a confusing muddle of light and dark shading so that it took a moment before Ricky could make out what it was at all. His eye traced the shapes and as it came into view he felt his blank stare twist into a look of repulsion. It was a rose with large blossoming petals that had sketchy half drawn faces that crawled up the steam and seemed to bleed into the petals. Ricky stared as if in a trance as the faces transformed themselves into those of Jane, her father, and his own father.

"It's not what I was expecting to draw." Donnie's voice was sharp and defensive as he quickly pulled the drawing back against his chest.

Ricky couldn't find his voice. The day was bright and warm but his body felt so cold. He was shaking. He'd told Donnie very little about Jane. The pain of the trial and not being able to see her anymore had been more then he'd wanted to go into. They'd both talked about their Franks. Ricky had even told him that he suspected his father had been the one to kill Lester Burnham. He had no pictures though, all the people in the drawing were only memories in his head, memories that Donnie had somehow seen, or dreamed.

"They made me cut my hair." Ricky heard himself saying emotionlessly, as though he hadn't just seen a drawing with his past in shaded lines.

"What? Who did?"

"At military school." Ricky bit his lip until it bled and then turned to Donnie with his laser eyes and asked; "Did Frank tell you to draw that?"


	3. Hands

"This is Gretchen?" Ricky traced the sad eyes with his finger and tried to memorize her features.

"Yeah." Donnie looked sort of sick. "The nose is wrong and her eyes aren't quite like that. In my head I see her perfect, but I can't seem to fit her onto the paper."

Ricky nodded solemnly and felt a pang of jealousy that Donnie could even come close to capturing her at all. It was the eyes that made him pause, they looked so haunted. Donnie said they were wrong but it was that secret look that reminded him of Jane. This girl, this Gretchen, with Jane's eyes. "The eyes are the best part." Ricky whispered but Donnie didn't hear him.

"I worry that she's still mad at me." The other boy stared unseeingly past Ricky to the window behind him. It was mid morning but the sky outside was so dark it looked like nighttime. A storm was coming. It hadn't started to rain yet but the wind was already strong enough to blow the elm branches against the window. They scraped across the pane like fingernails. _Scratch. Scratch._

"Who is?" Ricky turned to look outside the window too, half expecting to see an iridescent ghost girl sitting there, perched on the tree branches, smiling sickly at them.

"Gretchen." Donnie tore his eyes away from the window to focus intently back on Ricky. His voice was raw and almost angry. "That's why she won't let me capture her on paper. She's still mad."

"Why would she be mad at you?"

"For letting her die… for making it happen." Donnie bit his lip and looked like a sullen child holding back tears.

"You didn't kill her though…" Ricky's voice trailed off and he wondered if perhaps in some way he had. Donnie was often a confusing mess of contradictions. One minute he'd seem brilliant and childlike and the next he'd be scary and dangerous. "I thought you said Frank hit her?"

Donnie hugged his body and glared at the painted tabletop checkerboard. The colors swam before his vision and he felt hot tears gather at the back of his eyelids. "I made us go there. I knew something was going to happen. I _made _us leave the party." He swallowed hard. The spit had completely dried from his throat. He'd thought it all out before, but he'd never said it out loud, never heard the words spoken. _You killed her Donnie. _

Ricky closed the sketchbook carefully and laid it out flat on the table. His movements were slow and calculated.

Donnie's voice cracked. "I just don't understand why… why they would want it to happen like that. Why it ended so awful. If any of it was real, then I should have been able to go back. All the pieces should have come together so that I could fix things, but they didn't! Why would they show it all to me so clearly and then let her die anyway!" He shook his head angrily and a stray tear flew off his face and hit Ricky's cheek. "I can't believe in it because it's almost worse. There is no god. My mind made it all up. I'm just totally crazy."

"You're not." Ricky startled him by replying in a strong steady voice, "If you can draw Jane, from nowhere, from just a dream you might have caught hanging in the air around me, then there's something else in store for us. There's a reason you're here. Why we've meet." His hand moved across the table to suddenly grip Donnie's wrist.

Donnie twitched but willed himself not to pull his hand back as a warm thumb made tingling trails across his palm.

Ricky smiled his strange smile, their eyes finally meeting. "You have no lines on your palm, Donnie. Your fate isn't written yet."


	4. Red Dreams

Ricky shook his head and tried to hide his smile as he plopped down in the chair across from Donnie. "I thought for a second you'd been kidnapped by Little Red Riding Hood and that I'd never see you again."

Donnie made an effort to frown at the bad joke but Ricky could tell it was forced and saw the humor twitching at the corners of his mouth. "My mom got it for my birthday. It took a while for them to approve it and get it tagged." Donnie flipped the wrist of the red hoodie up to reveal a little white tag sewn into the inseam that read _Donald Darko._

Ricky unconsciously ran his fingers along the tag on the inside cuff of his own shirt. _Ricky Fitz._ All his clothing said that on it. It was a system the institute had set up, label a patient's clothing and then on laundry day he'll be sure to get it back. It never worked though. Ricky was always getting shirts that he knew weren't his, no matter what the label said on it.

"Donald? No one calls you that. Are all you're clothes tagged like that?"

Donnie seemed not to hear him though as he deliberately took the ends of his sweatshirt and zipped it all the way up to his chin. His bright eyes burned a little as he locked eyes with Ricky and dramatically flipped the red hood up over his head. His voice dropped to a conspiring whisper so that Ricky had to lean forward to hear him. "They call me Little Red Riding Hood."

Ricky licked his lips unconsciously. "Oh yeah? Is that your street name?"

Donnie spread his hands out across the table. "No one gets it. I've always been alone in this. Just me… and Frank I guess."

"Even Batman needed some help sometimes."

Donnie traced one of the black squares on the tabletop and without making eye contact said; "Robin got killed in the end."

"There's a pattern here. We just have to find it."

"I don't know if I can… again. I mean…" Donnie pulled the blood red fabric down over his face and muffled; "Gretchen… it's my fault."

Ricky grabbed his arm and jerked it away from his face, startling them both with his anger. "Stop it! You didn't kill me!" He let go just as quickly, all the color drained from his face as he whispered; "I mean her."

"You said me." Donnie's laser eyes cut into him. They waited each other out.

Ricky, usually the master at this game couldn't keep himself focused and dropped his eyes first. "I've been having these dreams." He told the tiled floor.

Donnie nodded curtly.

"I never dream but I've been…" He lowered his voice and leaned across the table to whisper close to Donnie's ear; "Not taking my meds." He waited for a response but Donnie just nodded again for him to go on. "I see you in the dreams." Ricky blushed.

Donnie chewed his lip, his calculating eyes not missing a thing.

"I think… it's her. That she's haunting me. That I'm supposed to help you." Ricky finally said.

Donnie shook his head once, his gaze not wavering as he asked. "What are the dreams like?"

"Beautiful." Ricky replied, unable to hold Donnie's glare as he said it. "Colors and feelings… like a kaleidoscope. They're strong. She's really _strong._"

"They scared you." It wasn't a question.

Ricky hadn't meant to tell him at all. It had seemed wrong somehow that she should be alive in some form and communicating with him instead_. If Donnie had been her great love then why wasn't she sending him the dreams? _ Ricky felt the weight of Donnie's jealousy and didn't know how to respond too it. "I lost myself in there." He glanced up slowly in surrender trying to catch Donnie's eyes again as he whispered; "and when I woke up I almost didn't know who I was."

Donnie let go of the breath he was holding and fiddled with the zipper on his hoodie. His eyebrows knit together like he was trying to work something out. After a while he mumbled, "I forget too sometimes… or I wish I could."

"I think… I think I saw your first kiss." Ricky blurted.

Donnie's head snapped up suddenly. His eyes were far away as he robotically repeated "She wanted it to be-"

"Beautiful." Ricky answered like they were sharing the lines of an old poem.

"What was it like?" Donnie's eyes had lost that faraway look and now they were dark and piercing as if the magic was over. He didn't believe him.

"You were shaking… just a little. Everything was white and green, too bright to see anything. You were… surprised. I felt… I mean she was, overwhelmed. She didn't think she was going to do it but then… it felt right." Ricky stumbled over the words with his eyes closed. He could still remember how it tasted and that scared him more then anything.

"You weren't lying."

"Sorry."


	5. Portal

"I've been an asshole." Donnie glared at his feet and stood awkwardly next to the concrete bench Ricky sat on.

They were outside on their break time. It was a cool day. There was a crispness to the air that made Donnie's throat ache, or maybe that was the guilt. He'd been avoiding the other boy since they'd talked about Gretchen. Memories, his and hers alone, spoken by someone else who shouldn't know. It was too wrong. He'd been waiting for a sign from Frank but his dreams had remained colorless and empty for two weeks.

Ricky was still as houses, his face unnecessarily close to the book he was reading.

Donnie shoved his hands deeper into his red jacket and sighed softly as he plunked down on the bench next to him. "I'm sorry." He faced away from Ricky and blankly watched as some of the other boys played a disorganized game of football.

Ricky itched his chin.

"You freaked me out and I wasn't sure how to handle it. I've been an asshole." Donnie scuffed his shoes into the half frozen mud and waited for an answer. After the silence stretched out between them for too long he gave up. "You wanna be alone now?" He guessed and made a move as if too leave.

Ricky's finally pulled his face out of his book and let an annoyed huff of breath flutter his shaggy bangs. "You _were_ a being an asshole but I accept your apology. I actually need your help."

"My help? For what?" Donnie furrowed his brow and then sat slowly back down on the bench. "You've been planning?" He said it like a question but suddenly he knew for sure that he had been. There was a slip of paper, like a bookmark in the fold of Ricky's book. The paper had mathematical equations with random arrows coming out that read 'portal' and 'timeline structure.'

Ricky followed his gaze to the bookmark and their eyes caught each other somewhere in between. "She told me how to find it. It's not very far. I can get to it."

Donnie felt chills crawling up and down his spine. Ricky's eyes looked totally dark and bottomless. "A portal? You found a portal?" He heard himself ask.

Ricky's eyes darted away from him as he nodded at one of the approaching nurses and stood up. "Yes." He whispered. "I'm breaking out."


	6. Bleeding Hope

Ricky's blood was everywhere.

Donnie could see a dark black trail leak out of his nose as he bent down and cradled the other boy's head in his lap. The trail dripped off his chin and smeared bright red under Donnie's fingers.

"I'm s-sorry." His throat felt like sandpaper and his whole face ached. He could smell the sweet smell of pine trees as he felt Ricky's shaking hands grasping at his elbows. _It shouldn't have happened like this. He shouldn't have let this happen._

"Why didn't you help me?" Ricky's hand suddenly reached up blindly to grasp his. His hand was shockingly cold as his wild and fearful eyes stared up at him.

"I'm s-sorry. I d-didn't believe you."

"Why didn't you help me?" Ricky repeated except now he had Gretchen's eyes and his skin was suddenly smooth and perfect like hers. The details filled in just as suddenly as he thought of her.

Her glassy dead eyes stared coldly up at him.

---

The nightmare was so vivid that when he woke he felt as if he was being torn from reality and that the white halls of the hospital were really a dream.

---

Donnie found Ricky furiously writing in a notebook tucked away in a corner in the main rec area. His hair looked sloppy and he had a couple days worth of stubble but he looked mostly alright. He sat in the empty chair next to him and stared at his shoes for a couple minutes as he waited for him to finish.

Ricky closed the notebook carefully and watched him twitch for half a second before saying; "Why are you nervous?"

Donnie stopped chewing on his sweatshirt string and looked up at him. "You need my help right? I'll do it. I'll help you. Whatever you want, I'll do it."

Ricky looked into his eyes solidly, reading him like a damn book. "What changed your mind?" He finally asked.

"Do you have all my memories now or something?" Donnie twitched under the knowing gaze. Images of Ricky's crumpled bloody body floated through his head and he wondered if it showed in his eyes.

"I only get _her_ memories… I think. I don't even know if they're real." The question hung between them. Only Donnie could tell him if they were true or not.

"It hurts to have hope." Donnie whispered after a long moment of silence.

"It hurts not too." Ricky's fingers unexpectedly interlaced with his. Their palms kissing as their thumbs interlocked. His grip was shockingly warm.

Donnie felt so stupid for not wanting the moment to end.


	7. Ghost Fingers

Ricky felt her cold breath tickle the hairs on the nape of his neck. A warmth, like a full body blush, spread across his skin, as he felt gentle ghost fingers ruffle through his too-short hair.

"Gretchen." He mouthed her name. He didn't remember even falling asleep.

"Follow me."

He sat up. There was only darkness all around him. He wasn't sure if he was awake or asleep. He touched his eyelids trying to tell if his eyes were even open. _Where? How?_

"I think I've found a way." Her voice dripped ice and darkness but Ricky leaned in closer to it, wanting to be a part of anything she offered. He had to do what she told him too. It was the only way for things to unravel, for him and Donnie both, to find the answers they needed. Whatever she asked of him Ricky had to do whatever he could to make it happen. _I'm ready. Show me._

"You have to _feel_ this." She whispered to him.

He let himself open to her.

"Feel _this_. " She whispered again her voice going slightly ragged and harsh. Her lips brushed against his ear as she spoke and he felt her memories shift through him.

It wasn't like the other times where it felt like he was trying on a pair of glasses. It was different this time, shocking. Her consciousness slipped inside him and her memories overwhelmed his senses. The touch of her ghost lips on his skin melded into the sensation of Donnie's warm nose pressed against his skin. It was more then just dreaming.

The nose bumped against his cheek and he heard Donnie's murmured lustful voice whisper, "I'm sorry. Does it hurt?"

Sensations hit him all at once. Donnie's body above him, covering him, hiding him, pressing him back against the soft fabric of a bed.

"Yeah." He panted, the voice sounding fragile and unfamiliar in his throat. He felt fingers on his chin as Donnie turned his face towards him and pressed their lips together. They were both sweating.

The Pain was unavoidably consuming. He squeezed his eyes shut. _How did he get here?_

Donnie's body unexpectedly shifted _inside_ him as he leaned forward bending over to flutter cool breath across his neck and whisper; "Hey, I love you. I love you Gretchen."

The warmth that filled his chest exploded black stars across the backs of his eyelids and he felt his old consciousness bubble up to the surface for a moment to hold the one thought; _This was the moment her soul bound itself to his._

--

Donnie felt the soft press of synthetic fur brush against his cheek and tickle his nose as

someone shifted to lie in bed next to him. _No, not someone_, _it was Frank._ He felt his pulse immediately quicken as his eyes opened in quiet surprise.

His heart crawled into his throat in both relief and fear as he hurriedly whispered. "Where have you been?"

"It's time. She's done it. She'll come for you soon."


	8. Death's Vision

---

Ricky felt like he was gliding. He knew he was in fact stealing quietly down the speckled linoleum hallway, moving faster and sneakier then he would have ever imagined, but he could hardly feel the floor beneath him. Her consciousness was taking up most of the space in his head, making other sensations less strong, like having cotton pressed all around him. It was more then just her relaying to him what she wanted. Now she was in control. He was too thrilled at all the changes he felt in himself to bother feeling afraid. In actuality it didn't feel much different then the drugs they made him take.

As he moved along with her, he began to logically process what he was seeing. Everything moved like it was alive. The hallways jittered around the edges and jumped in places that didn't make sense. Her mind opened a door somewhere in his head and he felt her explanation flow into his thoughts.

She was dead. Her vision was that of a world beyond his. She saw what had been, old hallways and doors that no longer existed. The jittering he was seeing was the over lapped images of their two worlds, like an over exposed picture. He could see everything with her eyes and his own human ones as well.

The institute was crawling with ghosts and he could see every one of them.

---

Donnie didn't know what to expect. Frank had told him it was time and then told him to wait. _Wait for what… the end of the world? _Hadn't he done this before? Why hadn't Frank waited with him? His fingers twisted into the cold fabric of the sheet on his bed. _Of course it's cold. Figments of your imagination don't have body heat. _His mind was winning the game of overwhelming obsessive thoughts. The 'what ifs' were crushing him.

He could fight. He could do anything, but waiting was killing him.

It hadn't been like this before. He'd been so sure of what they were trying to show him last time. There had never even been a question in his mind. They told him what to do and he did it.

Then everything had fallen apart.

Now all he had was questions, too many questions crowding out his thoughts. The fear crept up through his mind and rooted itself into his consciousness. _That never happened Donnie. You conjured this all up in your own mind to deal with the loss of Gretchen. It's not real. You never saw Frank until the night you killed him. None of this is real._ The cold and clinical voices of the doctors swarmed in his ears, as if they were really there.

He'd started to believe them before, before Ricky. Ricky not only believed him but he understood. Ricky understood everything. Was it crazy to go back? Were they both losing their minds? _I'd rather lose my mind together, then alone._

Donnie squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated on remembering what it felt like to have Ricky hold his hand. He expanded the memory in his mind and held onto the feeling of hope. The fearful beliefs ebbed and flowed around him but they couldn't touch the emotion unfurling inside of him.

This was a new kind of superpower he realized, being strong enough to withstand anything.

---


End file.
